Sen. Sasse pleased judge blocks immigration executive order

United States Sen. Ben Sasse is pleased a federal judge has put a temporary halt to President Barack Obama’s immigration executive order.

Sasse believes the president exceeded his authority by granting immunity to more than 4 million immigrants in the country illegally.

“Obviously, the Texas district judge’s ruling is a validation of three branches of government and that’s something that too often President Obama acts like is outdated,” Sasse tells Jack and Dave in the Morning on Nebraska Radio Network affiliate KLIN.

A lawsuit has been filed by 26 Republican-run states, seeking to invalidate the executive order. The judge has suspended the executive order as the case moves forward in the courts. He did not rule on the merits of the case.

The president’s executive order would prohibit the deportation of immigrants in the country illegally who are parents of United States citizens as well as to illegal immigrants who have resided in the United States for at least five years. Many would be able to get work permits. The order also expanded the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that allows young people brought to the United States illegally as children to apply for two-year work permits.

Sasse says the federal judge has upheld the concept of three branches of government providing checks and balances to each other.

“Therefore, the president can’t act unilaterally to just make up law when he doesn’t like the law that exists.”

Though Sasse finds fault with President Obama’s use of executive orders, he says actions by Congress might well have encouraged it. Sasse says members of Congress have provided the opportunity for presidents to write law, rather than enforce it.

“They regularly write laws that are hundreds and thousands of pages long. They don’t know what is in them,” according to Sasse. “There are many internal contradictions and they punt it to the executive branch and they say can you figure it out, can you just write the law by the regulatory process?”

Nebraska is among the 26 states challenging the constitutionality of the president’s immigration executive order.